Steady the Boat: Politicians’ Views About Deliberation

Contemporary deliberation has been studied extensively from the angles of citizens’ demands or engagement and from that of process functioning or its consequences. However, there is little evidence about what politicians think about deliberation. Their roles are crucial since the politicians are those who decided when deliberation can be initiated and whether the policy recommendations of mini-publics are picked up. This paper aims to address that gap in the literature and has a twofold goal. First, it maps the politicians’ perceptions about deliberation and unveils the meaning that they associate with this process. Second, it seeks to explain the variation in their perceptions based on their role perceptions, critique of representative democracy, attitudes towards citizens’ engagement, and system legitimacy. To this end, we conduct semi-structured interviews with Members of the British Parliament, a country in which deliberation has been used extensively in the last decade. We use thematic analysis to interpret the content of answers.